FrightFall part two: Dating Dracula is never easy

As promised, here is the follow up to my earlier FrightFall post since I decided to do a literary duet with my readathon books this time around.

For round two, I went with a pair of vampire themed reads; specifically the ladies from the Bram Stoker novel that has become the template for this section of the horror aisle.

One of them was a reread for me, Dracula, My Love by Syria James. Subtitled “The secret journals of Mina Harker”, the classic terror tale is told entirely from her perspective as Mina begins with her trip to Whitby with her best friend Lucy, who is being courted by several men.

While Mina is already settled in the marriage department, she is a bit worried about her fiancé Jonathan, a young lawyer on a long business trip to make arrangements with a foreign noble regarding that man’s future move to England.

Even though Mina is happy to be engaged, she does wonder about the other possibilities in life that her steadfast plans won’t allow her to pursue. After a strange shipwreck in the area, she meets a mysterious stranger who calls himself Maximillian Wagner that instantly charms her despite her initial reluctance. 

All too soon, this pleasant friendship is heading towards something more serious , which alarms yet allures Mina all at once:

Fortunately, news of Jonathan’s return breaks off this connection and with her intended needing medical attention, Mina does her best to push aside any lingering thoughts about Wagner.

However, upon hearing the shocking news of her friend Lucy’s sudden death and Jonathan (now her husband) receiving a shock to spot a figure in public that he had thought long gone, Mina finds herself running into Wagner yet again.

As Jonathan and some of his current colleagues begin to team up to face off against an unspeakable foe, Mina is fighting a more personal battle. Between her devotion to her husband and the passions stirred by Wagner, she is torn emotionally apart.

When it does become clear that the enemy that Jonathan and company are facing and the man she fiercely desires is but one and the same, the risks are incredibly higher and more than Mina’s heart is in true danger.

I first read Syrie James’s Jane Austen themed novels (she also wrote one about Charlotte Brontë) and being familiar with her style made this story instantly engaging to revisit. 

She gives Mina quite a bit of depth, with a backstory about her family’s origins(with a touch of supernatural ability) and fully showcased how taken for granted her intelligence is by the men around her. Interestingly enough, only her vampire lover seems to credit Mina with mental prowess enough to make her an ally of his(for a little while at least).

James does a nice balancing act of honoring the source material while enhancing the strengths of certain characters and tweaking the image of others (Van Helsing isn’t as savvy as he is usually depicted in these stories). She creates a lovely alternative narrative for Mina and Dracula that ought to entertain both newcomers and longtime fang fans alike:

The novel that I read along side D,ML was a newer read for me by Kiersten White, Lucy Undying.

The premise of this story is that Lucy from the Dracula legend did not die by the hands of those vampire hunters (it was another bride of Dracula who was killed in her place) and instead, roamed the world in search of a purpose in her unlife.

She wound up traveling to numerous locations and running into other female vampires who had also been turned by Dracula and then abandoned. Lucy’s overriding concern was for Mina, who Dracula had initially targeted, and by putting herself in danger on her behalf, hoped that act of self sacrifice would be enough to honor the woman she desperately loved yet couldn’t be with in more than one lifetime:

The second half of this narrative comes from Iris, a modern day heiress to a cult like corporate entity that promises eternal youth through its cosmetic products.

Iris is still reeling from the death of her domineering mother and the controlling clutches of the company when she mets a mysterious woman who calls herself “Elle”. She appears to a museum historian and someone with expertise in antique goods is what she needs right now.

Iris is planning to sell off what assets she can in London and make a serious escape plan but finds herself getting very attached to Elle, who is helping her to find buyers for what’s left in the ruined old estate house that was left to her.

 Among the barely valuable possessions, she comes across a journal written by another heiress, Lucy, of course, and finds a connection to that past person that also leads to their mutual connection to the ever present threat that is Dracula:

I won’t say more about the plot except that it’s one hell of a ride there-White doesn’t hesitate in creating an epic tale of love, manipulation and self empowerment with some kickass vampire action.

I had read some of the author’s previous YA books (her Buffy the Vampire Slayer duet is excellent) but this was my first time with her adult storytelling and it’s no joke when it comes to bringing some fresh blood to this old school story. It is definitely the perfect other side of the coin to Dracula, My Love and if anyone needs a good book club recommendation, these two are great reads to devour, together and separate from each other!

I must confess that it took me a bit longer to finish this pair of books (Lucy Undying I completed on Election Night!) but it was so worth it.

Doing this back to back reading was trickier than I thought for a readathon yet I might try it again (just calculate how long the books actually are next time).

Regardless, my thanks to Michelle Miller at Seasons of Reading for giving us all a good excuse to dive into our overwhelming TBR piles and enjoy our bounty of bookish delights. Hope that everyone else who took part in FrightFall had plenty of page turning trick or treat fun as well.

As for Halloween, it was a wonderful surprise to discover that  TCM was airing the 1979 adaptation of Dracula starring Frank Langella as the Count.

That movie was my gateway into Dracula lore and yes, it’s not an accurate version of the novel as it was more based on a stage play that Langella had performed in.

However, the gothic romance elements of the story were dazzling to behold and still are, by the way. There’s other fine performances here with Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing, Donald Pleasence as Dr. Steward and Kate Nelligan as Lucy(in this version, she’s the leading lady while Mina is Van Helsing’s doomed daughter).

Such a seasonal treat to be in vampire country and to embrace a fear factor not related to reality (never thought the color blue could bring such joy!) for the moment was wonderful. Let us all hope that vampires of any variety remain in the fictional realm to entertain rather than truly terrify our collective existence: